Chapter 5
Crash?
Okay, now what?
I’m out. I’m officially a discharged patient of St. Elliot’s, signed off by the ever-sympathetic Dr. Wyle and sent into the wild like a particularly confused forest animal. Apparently, I’m “physically fit,” as per the hospital and the glorious State of New York.
Cool. Great. Except I’ve got a head full of jack shit. Just static where there should be a life.
Nada.
Zilch.
Oh—Spanish?
That’s something, I guess. I know some Spanish. Not enough to solve crimes or charm old women at a bodega, but enough to know “nada” means I’m fucked. That’s… progress?
I try to reach for more. For a face, a place, a name—hell, even a favorite cereal. Nothing. Blank pages. Like someone hard-reset my brain and forgot to reload the backup.
So here I am: standing on the sidewalk outside the hospital, wearing the gray sweats and black hoodie Carol bought me.
The hoodie’s soft, smells faintly like store plastic and something cleaner.
It’s mine now, I guess. Along with the socks, the underwear, and fifty bucks she stuffed into my palm like it was no big deal. Like it didn’t mean anything.
But it did.
Honestly, I didn’t think people like her existed.
Not anymore. Not the kind who look at you—really look—when you don’t have a name or an address or a past.
Not the kind who curse out doctors and shop for you like they’ve known you for years instead of days.
She didn’t owe me a damn thing. I wasn’t her friend. I wasn’t even her patient anymore.
But she still pressed that fifty into my hand with a muttered “Don’t be stupid,” and this look on her face like if I got hit by a bus, she’d personally beat the paramedics to the scene and drag me back inside.
Now I’m standing in front of the hospital with fifty bucks, a sling, and a name that doesn’t belong to me.
“Crash.”
The social worker said a shelter was a few blocks away. Said they’d help me call around to the precincts, maybe print out a list of missing persons. Maybe, if I’m lucky, someone somewhere has been wondering where the hell I went.
Or maybe I’m no one.
But hell, if Carol gave enough of a shit to see me under all the broken, maybe I’m worth finding.
Okay, that hope?
That stubborn, flickering little spark Carol lit under my ribs?
It lasts exactly two days.
I walk around New York like a jackass with no GPS and a half-baked brain.
Hood up, arm aching in the sling, face tightening every time someone looks at me too long.
I hit every precinct within walking distance and a few that damn near destroy my soles.
I tell my story over and over—name’s Crash, not really, no ID, no memory, woke up in St. Elliot’s with nothing but a headache and good bone structure.
They smile. They nod. They tell me they’ll “check the system.” Then they look up at me with this polite, dead-eyed sympathy like I’m a sad dog someone dropped off at the wrong house.
Nothing. No missing person report. No match. No leads. Apparently, no one gives a flying fuck that I’ve vanished from somewhere.
The shelters? Christ. First one smells like piss and despair.
Second one’s full. Third one hands me a foam mat and a warning to sleep light.
The guy next to me on the floor coughs all night and mutters in his sleep about fire.
I lie awake staring at the cracked ceiling, wondering if I’ve ever killed a man.
The worst part is… I don’t know. Maybe I was a good person. Maybe I wasn’t.
On the second night, I make the stupid decision to stay outside. Just one night, I tell myself. Fresh air, stars, whatever.
Big mistake.
The streets at night? Holy fucking shit.
People scream at shadows. Cops cruise by like vultures with guns.
A guy tries to sell me pills out of a McDonald’s cup and then calls me a pretty bitch when I ignore him.
Rats the size of housecats scatter down an alley near 9th and 33rd.
I swear one of them looked at me like he knew I didn’t belong.
I curl up behind a dumpster around 2 a.m., one hand still on the forty-two bucks I’ve got left, and I wonder if this is it. If I just live here now. A blank slate with no pen. A ghost with abs and a name that sounds like a punchline.
I miss Carol.
Which is insane, because I don’t even really know her. But hell, she’s the last person who looked at me like I was real. Like I mattered.
Maybe tomorrow I go back.
Or maybe I disappear completely.
One more night like this and I might not even care which.
The next morning tastes like rust and old regret.
My back’s fucked from sleeping on concrete. My arm throbs like it’s pissed I ever dared to move. I feel grimy, like the city’s crawled into my skin and is planning to live there rent-free.
I wipe the corner of my mouth and sit up slow. Some guy’s pissing against the wall across from me, whistling off-key. A girl walks by with dead eyes and a hoodie two sizes too big, clutching a plastic bag like it’s the last thread holding her together. No one looks at me twice.
I’m invisible.
I used to hate that I couldn’t remember who I was. Now I think it might be a fucking mercy.
Because out here? Being nobody is safer.
I get up, pull my hoodie tighter, and start walking again. No real destination—just movement. As long as I’m moving, I’m not completely unraveling.
I buy a shitty coffee from a corner cart and sit on a bench near Bryant Park, watching people pass. Businessmen, joggers, tourists with too much camera gear. They all have somewhere to be. Something to do. Names, memories, little digital trails that prove they exist.
I’ve got a wrinkled five, a loose shoelace, and the ghost of Carol’s voice in my head telling me not to be stupid.
And damn it… I miss her.
Not just because she saved my ass with clothes and money. Not because she was the last warm voice in a sea of static. I miss her because she saw me. Even when I was a blank page. Even when I didn’t know what the fuck I was worth.
She looked at me like I wasn’t disposable.
And that? That shit sticks.
By noon, I’m standing outside St. Elliot’s again, heart doing this dumb little flutter like I’m sixteen and about to ask someone to prom. I don’t know what I’m hoping for. That she’s on shift? That she’ll see me and not roll her eyes and say “Jesus, you again?”
I tell myself I just want to say thanks again. Maybe return the favor somehow. Maybe see her smirk at me and call me an idiot one more time. Something. Anything.
Because out here?
Hope doesn’t last.
But maybe… just maybe… Carol does.